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One Last Time
The sun kissed her delightedly, as she paced her steps onto the green lawn tying up a bundle of grey hair. Her weary eyelids clearly indicated the sleepless nights she had been going through recently.
As always, she took hold of the newspaper but the regular reading through it didn’t happen, instead, she just stared onto a distance gripping the paper harder, probably dwelling in some thoughts. For the first time in 60 years of her life, she realized that the sky is not always blue nor life too.
The lifeless structure that bounded their family suddenly woke up with the little one opening up to another new day in her calendar. Within seconds of waking up, she began to turn the house upside down.
The tired mother who had work in the kitchen and more left undone even at this early hour, sighed a little as her husband came about to catch the mischievous kid running around. The couple were happy, excited, worried, and tensed for it was the kid’s first day at the school.
About the hour that the birds started to settle onto the old branches, the family sat together around the dining table, for breakfast which was fresh and hot as the air around the table, it was pretty dense and too silent for a normal morning.
The silence broke as the old woman asked for some more water to her daughter-in-law from one end of the table, while the young wife was busy serving her husband at the other end.
From her alight into the car, the house became empty and the engine sounds raised their voice near the garage. The old woman had a separate car and the couples had their own, each paced its way onto their driveway.
As the wife and husband, along with their child started to ascend their vehicle, the old woman stopped them and asked to leave the kid with her instead.
Not having any say in the matter, the husband and wife nodded in despair, and both the cars left the house slowly as the leaves up in the branches swayed a little, and the fallen ones rustled a bit under the tires and the sun shone brightly as ever.
Out of the two cars, the old lady’s car was more silent, other than the rattling sound of the engine and the gibberish talks of the little one. The grandmother presented the little girl with some sweets and a cold kiss. Her face was pretty wrinkled and her lips were not so bright, but the love stayed fresh.
The other car was noisy, one could not even hear the engine sound over the wife’s complaints and other talks. The husband felt it hard to drive under all the list of complaints she had for him prepared, and at the same time, the husband was praying sincerely to reach the school as soon as possible as he passed each corner in the street.
After a long plight both the cars reached the school compound, the gates opened with a screeching noise, and the car door shut with consecutive thud noises as each of them alighted from the vehicles. The old woman embraced her little one and kissed her once more.
Her parents took her hand in jolly and walked towards the classroom, and the old woman joined them after a long pause of staring deep into the ground around. They walked together.
The kid was happy for the moment being, to be in a new place. She jumped around, thrilled by the crowd, other kids, the festive atmosphere and all but, as the distance between the doors of the classroom and her well-tied shoelace began to lessen each second, she grew more suspicious about the plot.
She slowly wrapped her small palm around her dad’s finger and started to understand something is going to happen now or then when she saw other kids crying out their throat through the windows, as they passed by them. She glanced alternatively at her parents and the lady staring at her from a distance in front of the room.
Seeing that the new lady had her arms wide opened up for her, she tightened her grip but felt strongly as if it were getting loose. Not letting go she held on with both her hands now, frightened a little, and started to weep some periodic sobs.
She finally burst out when she noticed her parents have crossed a considerable distance from her and doubted whether they would come back for her, but all her fights turned into vain as the new lady took her into the class and placed her with the other crying kids, as her family left the school. She sobbed and fell asleep.
The family left the schoolyard with a heavy heart and moistened eyes and as the old woman was about to leave her son asked whether they could join her but was rejected by a thud sound of the closed doors.
As the car moved onto the streets the young couple understood the child inside the old woman’s heart and smiled slightly, as they went to their own workplaces.
Meanwhile, inside the car, the obsessed old lady instructed the driver to drive faster than usual with a broken voice, who for once was taken aback by surprise as he had never heard those words from his mistress ever before.
Usually, he was scolded regularly even for picking up a little speed, and after a little pause and bewilderment, he picked up the pace and raced to the college where she had been teaching for the past 20 years, today too.
Her rumbling heart paced at every street corner and the ends of her handheld kerchief moistened after each minute until the college gates opened for her with a bright smile and a custom salute from the milky mustached watchman.
The driver helped with the door and she stepped out and soaked into the atmosphere for a few seconds. The cold breeze carried away her heavy breath into the wilderness of the college campus.
Walking into a few steps, she turned back and ordered the driver to pick her up later than usual. The amused driver watched his mistress with a heavy heart, walking into the campus, and he stood there for a moment, sighed a little. His eyes moistened at one corner, wiping it off he returned to his seat.
The car drove off the campus, slowly.
Back at the school, the noises were slowly fading away into the brightened walls. The inhuman figures of tom and jerry were starting to get the gaze of the crowd inside, and the little girl still weeping over her cartoon chair started to look around her, in amaze.
She started to slowly forget the fact that she was not at her home or that she is not accompanied by her parents. The overwhelming noise around her deteriorated, giving her a peace of mind to encapsulate everything happening around her in this abnormal morning.
Sweet toning voice filled her tiny ears with a joy she never felt, a song so sweet and rhyming and sung by a lady that reminded her of her own mother.
Her head swayed to the rhythm of those poetic words clinging to the musical notes of the lady’s claps as she noted it had spread all over through the room, and as the song ended melodiously there was a silence deeming into the room which was shattered by a set of applause followed up by the whole children.
After sometime the lady approached her, with a smile so curvy as the boat she drew last night, and she loved it. They began to chat, first, she had some suspicion but after a few minutes, she found it comfortable to do so.
She was not even trying to cry and began to dwell in all the toys around and she saw tom and jerry in the wall chasing each other around the hall. She was happy. The place was almost empty other than the lovebirds and couples at some corners around, who slowly started to move as she paced into the college.
She didn’t care to give them the stare, instead, she walked straight to her room. It was an early hour for the campus to be lively and open. Each step she took, she weighed them carefully yet quickly.
Like a student who is late for the grumpy teacher’s class, she paced towards her classroom and saw it closed and silent. She stood there for a moment breathing in heavily, and gently pushed the door to its purpose as she was worried whether it would be opened by this hour.
The door loosened its grip, and a smile formed under her wrinkled chins. She pushed it further and took the courtesy to step into her classroom. Her smile was now vibrant as a rainbow shadowing a clear lake on a warm sunny day.
Waves of melodious notes hit her from the far end of the classroom and escaped into the campus atmosphere treading through the fallen leaves, as all the windows welcomed the element of light to caress the wooden desks and her weary eyes.
Light filled up the dark room, in a second and revealed the beautiful decorations it hid under its cape till then and a round of applause accompanied her slow steps to the middle of the joyful crowd around, her colleagues and students.
She stood silent for a moment as one or two teardrops raced through her cheeks and pounded to the already wet corner of her handkerchief. The air around was filled with wishes and music and faces started to apprehend the last day of her career with smiles, and the tears started to become steady in no time and not the music, or the applause could stop the tears from brimming up her weary eyelids.
The ruffles settled as the last pair of official shoes walked out of the doorway and vanished into the corridor. It took her two taps to her desk and the whole class was silent and still like a sunflower garden on a sunny day.
It was like a festival ended there, but she didn’t mind she just kept aside all the gifts and bouquets and started the class, as usual for one last day, as she took a piece of chalk and stepped onto her diose.
By evening she was heavily equipped with wishes from each doorway she passed by, and after her last lecture too came to an end, she had a brief moment with the other staff and the principal. After that she went down to the ground and secured a spot under her favorite tree, the same way she did 20years ago.
Shades of the trees gave her comfort, as she reconciled in her past memories and reckoned that of all the places she tutored, this college was the most important one, which took a huge part in her career. She remembered her first day as it happened yesterday and she smiled to no one, into the aesthetics that prolonged into the shades of the campus.
A car drove in near to her and hauled at the shades, her driver, looking the same as he was in the morning, elites the vehicle and sat a few feet away from the lady. He too started to stare into the campus and sighed a little.
“I asked you to come later, why did you come to this much earlier? Are you stupid or what?” she angrily continued her rage until she noticed his tears dripping down.
In a broken voice, he replied, “This is the last day for you in this college and your career too, and apparently it is the same for me too as my services come to an end after this day. It’s the last day for me to drive you here too, so I have every right to enjoy it too, for the last time” and sighed heavily.
She didn’t say anything more, instead, she let him as he was and stared deeper into the campus. They sat there till the dawn started to close in on the shadows. Again, the car drove off the campus slowly. From his side-view mirror, he could see his mistress putting her head out and getting the last glimpse of the college like a small girl peeping through the narrow windowpane of a train as the engine takes a curve.
Over the broad steps, she trod lightly in pace ignoring the son’s questions as to how well the function was conducted and went straight to her bedroom. Both of the couples exclaimed in awe as the wooden doors shut them off, except the little one who is busy dressing up her doll.
The daughter-in-law went to the closed door and her obnoxious knocks were never answered. A bit worried she slightly pushed the door, opening it up wide only to see her mother-in-law standing beside the window and staring into the night. She asked her if she was okay, and realizing that waiting for a reply was void, she left silently closing the door once again.
Through the window, with blurred eyes and a lost mind. She craved to be born again, teach again, and live again. There, a long way from there was her college, there was her home, where her soul rested and her dreams walked, for one last time.
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